Iceland lobster ban likely

ICELAND’S lobster fishermen are being forced to endure one their worst seasons for many years, according to the latest industry reports. And a complete fishing ban now seems likely.
It is just over a month since Fisk Seafood announced it was closing a coldwater shrimp processing centre in the west of the country because of poor returns and a gradually depleting stock.
Now another shellfishing group is experiencing similar stock problems. The industry website Kvotinn.is reports that with lobster, often referred to in Iceland as langoustine, the situation is as bad as most people can remember.
The catch so far has only totalled 210 tonnes compared with 363 tonnes a year ago, and only nine vessels have landed lobster catches.
The recruitment rate is reported to be very low, a situation that has been developing for a number of years and one which is likely to prompt renewed calls for a complete ban on lobster fishing until stocks have recovered.
The number of young lobsters has been on the decline for at least a decade. It is certainly a far cry from the 1960s and 1970s when hundreds of tonnes of lobster and crayfish were caught and landed.
Specialist Jónas Páll Jónasson, from Iceland’s Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, told the fishing paper Fiskifrettir recently that he had never seen a situation like this, adding that the stocks are declining ‘at a frightening speed’.
He believed there was little doubt a lobster fishing ban would be imposed in the near future – it was just a matter of when it will happen.